Things Are Looking Up For This Substitute Teacher

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP FOR THIS SUBSTITUTE TEACHER

It’s only fair that I should share my good news with you, after all the angst I’ve dumped since beginning my new adventure as a substitute teacher. Today I found my sweet spot — with the five-year-olds.

The initial shock & trauma brought on by six days of “teaching” a rambunctious first and second grade class lessened after a week of recovery. I read several books on classroom management in the interim. I then subbed for a few days with a different class of the same age group, and I could tell I was learning some of the tricks of the trade. We saw a play in DC and watched a dance recital, so there were perks, but I still came away feeling that I had been pummeled and crushed and mangled and tossed in the dumpster each afternoon.

I spent one dreadful day administering math tests to fifth graders which made me feel cruel as I watched my fellow non-math compatriots wriggle and sigh and twirl their hair and bounce their legs and stare into space and flunk the test. I knew exactly how they felt. I’ve been there. Heck, if I hadn’t spent the night before practicing fraction equations, I couldn’t have passed it either.

Returning to the Fray

So it was with great trepidation that I returned to school for the first of three days with a dozen kindergartners. I was still wondering if I had misconstrued various spiritual “promptings” regarding this new direction.

I began to put into practice advice from my newly acquired Substitute Teacher Handbook (thanks, R!) such as, “A ratio of one negative to eight positive interactions is recommended.” My time spent poring over the list of “101 Ways to Say ‘Good Job!’” was well worth it. (Though I had to laugh at “Out of sight!” Has anyone said that since 1969?)

I also immediately identified the kid who was going to be trouble (it’s in the eyes and the dimples) and recruited him to be my “special helper.”

Surprisingly, this technique worked like a charm: “The most effective strategy for keeping students on-task is for the teacher to walk around the classroom in a random pattern.” I’m actually pretty good at wandering aimlessly, so this successful “strategy” came easily.

Perhaps it’s not going to be rocket science.

A Full Heart

I touch the kids a lot, pat their heads, rub their shoulders, high-five their little hands. And it turns out it’s OK to smile at kindergartners, whereas smiling at second graders is a major show of weakness and is asking for trouble.

I have a photo of the moment I knew I was in the right place. My little people filed outside for recess and burst onto the playground, only to be stopped in their tracks by the most fascinating and astounding thing they had ever encountered! A major event!

The jungle gym, swing set and sandbox sat empty as the whole class gathered in wonderment around . . . a dead worm being eaten by ants. I joined their circle.

After recess I read them a book called Ten Things You Can Do to Help the Earth and we talked about worms and mice and compost and strawberries. During our afternoon “Meeting for Worship” (it’s a Quaker school), we pondered the question: “Why do I love nature?”

My heart is full tonight. 

Related posts:

https://melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/was-this-teaching-thing-all-a-mistake/

https://melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/the-continuing-adventures-of-a-new-substitute-teacher/

https://melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/end-of-chapter-one-substitute-teacher/

 

 

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The Humbling of a Substitute Teacher

The little girl is cute as can be. She has a button of a nose that she wrinkles up when you say it’s time for math, and her coarse black hair is braided into unwieldy pigtails that spring out from the sides of her head. Right now, her mouth is open in a little o and she is looking at you as if you are very dangerous indeed. Perhaps a psychopath.

And you are acting like one. You are bending over and yelling into her little face at the top of your lungs, “I don’t care whose job it is, you are doing it and you are doing it now! I am sick of this!”

Suddenly all the children in the class are busily stacking their chairs as if they do this every afternoon, which they do not. It’s why your back has gone out of whack and you’ve been gobbling Advil for two days and are unable to chase wayward children down the hall when you tell them they can’t go to the water fountain but they go anyway. Because you end every day by stacking twenty chairs and then stooping and stooping and stooping, gathering scissors and crayons and water bottles and abandoned spelling worksheets and all the detritus of the day which other teachers somehow manage to have their children pick up, but you can not.

This is why I am yelling at the cute little girl. I am in pain. The teacher for whom I was supposed to sub two days has shingles and this is day five with her unruly class. (It has been confirmed by several teachers that this is one of the toughest classes in the school, and I am highly relieved to hear this.) It is fifteen minutes before dismissal, the end of the day so close I can smell it, and this little girl has blurted out the last of one too many “nos,” one too many “it’s not my jobs,” and one too many “but our teacher lets us do a, b, or c.”

True, the girl has been acting up and getting worse all week, aligning herself with the constantly trying second grade boys. But she has not been responsible for most of the week’s trouble in this, my first eye-opening week of substitute teaching.

Tomorrow I will apologize to her in front of the class. To show them how grownups who are not psychopaths behave.

I FORGOT

The Continuing Adventures of a New Substitute Teacher

“Your Amazon order of Setting Limits in the Classroom, 3rd Edition has shipped!”

I barely remember rush-ordering the book last night, but apparently I’m not ready to quit yet — I’m investing.

If you’ve been following my latest adventures as a substitute teacher, you will know that yesterday, my first day, I barely made it out alive. At least that’s how it felt after seven hours with a pack of first and second graders. My stomach was drowning in stress hormones, reminding me of when I suffered from anxiety as a teenager and had to be put on meds.

After writing a Facebook note and a blog post last night basically screeching, “Help, I’m going down!” I got tons of excellent advice from Moms and Dads and teachers. Even my eighteen-year-old grand niece told me that things would be OK; she remembers loving her second grade sub but doing her best to torture her all the same.

Everyone tried to encourage me. A few people told me that things would be better the second day. But they hadn’t met these kids. A friend in New Hampshire nailed it (and she should know, raising three small boys): “In my experience,” she wrote, “they’re one good meal or one good night’s rest away from feral animals. That said, every interaction you have is an opportunity to make a difference.”

Another friend told me to “pull up your big girl panties and get back in the ring!”

So as I marched determinedly down the hall this morning, I repeated those words to myself like a mantra. “I’ve got my big girl panties on and I’m getting back in the ring!”  The theme from Rocky played in my head.

Day Two in the Classroom

Amazingly enough, my friends were right. Today was way better.

Things that worked: I raised my voice unexpectedly. With me, any time I raise my voice it’s unexpected, and I was surprised how immediately this worked (at first).

I stopped smiling. This was really hard; I am such a natural smiler. But I was a little angry after yesterday, and I think that helped.

Instead of letting the children get “just a little” out-of-hand because “they’re only being kids,” I immediately stopped the production of paper airplanes, crumpled them up, and put them in the recycling bin. As soon as I heard the words, “Guess what I made? It’s a scissors launcher!!” I was on it.

I had more fun today. I made the class a little bit mine. It’s a Quaker school, so we start with a few minutes of “morning worship,” which means sitting in a silent circle with a candle in the center. At the end of the time, I had them recite the “Saint Patrick’s Prayer” with me, complete with body movements. (I changed the word “Christ” to “Light.”) They liked it!

After that, we all took a break and went to the windows to watch three deer in the woods outside the classroom. (Thanks, God!)

Later I read the story about Saint Patrick that I wrote for them, and we talked about respecting immigrants and people of different religions.

I’m in the right place. Next week is “diversity week” at school. There are quotes on the bulletin boards like Shirley Chisolm’s “Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt,” and Angela Davis’s “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” In the older girl’s bathroom, there isn’t much graffiti, but what I saw said things like “Hope” and “I love you!”

I’m going to stick this out. We’ll see how the other ages in K-8 pan out.

I’ve got my big girl panties on now, and this evening I am experiencing one of my favorite feelings. I am dang proud of myself.

Was This Teaching Thing All a Mistake?

WAS THIS TEACHING THING ALL A MISTAKE?

The closest thing I can liken it to is that feeling you get when you’ve been in a car accident and you step out all wobbly, gingerly testing every part of your body. You think you might be OK, but then again you might be missing a limb and not feeling it because you are in deep shock. Everything seems vivid and clear and surreal. You are glad to be alive.

You take deep gulping breaths and blink back tears, tears that have been lurking since you ate your PB&J sandwich at noon and waited for the kids to come back from recess.

Today you have been sad, mad, and despairing, but mostly just powerless.

Over first and second graders.

My first day as a substitute teacher might have been better without the second grade boys in the mix. In fact, it most definitely would have been. The paper airplanes wouldn’t be stuck on top of the ceiling light fixture and the four-foot-tall stack of plastic tubs would not have careened to the ground and scattered all the regular teacher’s folders and papers all over the floor.

I just thank God that the head of the school did not walk in at that moment. With two boys denying responsibility at higher and higher decibel levels and a third boy sobbing his heart out and the rest of the class staring at me with saucer-sized eyes, wondering if I was going to hit someone.

The girls mostly got into fights with each other over sharing toys and where things such as rocket ships and flags were supposed to be stored. There were raised voices, there were tears, there was one who sat in a corner and sulked for ten minutes. I asked her if she wanted to talk and she shook her head so I left her there. She seemed to bounce back.

I don’t know. Was this whole idea of substitute teaching a massive mistake?

My Facebook friends were so encouraging! “You’ll be amazing . . . you’ll be great . . . you have so much wisdom . . . you’ll change lives!”

Not so much.

There were moments. Helping a little girl learn to read the words “ice cream and cake” was cool, and reading Horton Hears a Who to an exhausted class at the end of the day with one small child cuddled next to me was five minutes of well-earned bliss.

A little red-headed girl who was only with my class for an hour of spelling and writing came running in to give me a hug after school.

And A, despite being in tears several times during the day, presented me with this:

A’s Gift

I don’t know whether that is a TV or a couple of aliens coming in through a window, but it matters not. I will keep this picture as a reminder of my first day as a teacher. Someday I hope to laugh about it all. Right now, my stomach hurts. I have to go back tomorrow.